Classic Poem

A pilgrim led, o'er Syrian sand,
A camel by the halter-band.
The animal, with startled eye,
Grew suddenly so fierce and shy,
And snorted so, for very dread
His leader dropped the rein and fled.
He ran, till, in a sheltered nook
Beside the way, he spied a brook;
Half crazed, he hears the beast behind
Madly snuff up the burning wind.
He crept into the fountain's nook, —
Plunged not, — but still hung o'er the brook;
When, lo! a bramble came to view,
That from the fountain's waters grew.
Thereto the man did straightway cling,
Close crouching, coldly shuddering.
When he looked up, he saw with dread
Peer down that frightful camel's head,
That still more near and frightful grew;
And when below he bent his view,
Down in the fountain's depths he saw
A dragon, with extended jaw,
That lay there waiting for his blood,
When he should drop into the flood;
For, lo! thus trembling 'twixt the two,
A third woe met the wretch's view.
Where in the cavern's crevice clung
The bush's root on which he hung,
He saw of mice a busy pair,
One black, one white, close nibbling there.
He saw the black one and the white
Alternately the root did bite.
They gnawed, they tugged, with snout and foot
They raked the earth from round the root;
And as the mould, down-rattling, fell,
The dragon looked up from the well,
To see how soon the bush would fall
Into the water, load and all.
The man, in terror and despair,
Beset, besieged, beleaguered there,
In vain from this most dread suspense
Sought and besought deliverance.
But as he strains his eager eyes,
Nodding above his head he spies
A twig with blackberries thick-hung, —
Part of the vine to which he clung.
No more he saw the camel's head
So hideous, nor the dragon dread,
Nor yet the mice's knavery,
When once the berries met his eye.
The beast o'erhead might snort and blow,
The dragon lurk and gloat below,
And at his side the mice might gnaw, —
The blackberries were all he saw.
They pleased his eyes, — he thought them sweet, —
Berry on berry did he eat;
So great the pleasure while he ate,
It made him all his fear forget.

Ask'st thou what foolish man is he
Forgets such fear so easily?
Know them, O friend, that man art thou;
For thou shalt hear the moral now.
The dragon down beneath the wave
Is Death's wide-gaping maw, — the grave.
The camel threatening overhead
Is Life's distress, and doubt, and dread.
'Twixt Life and Death aye hovering,
Thou dost to Earth's frail thorn-bush cling.
The two that gnaw incessantly
The root that bears the twigs and thee,
To bring thee down to Death's dark might, —
The mice's names — are Day and Night.
The black one gnaws, concealed from sight,
From eventide till morning light;
From morning light till eventide,
The white one gnaws the root beside.
Yet, in this wild and weary waste,
The berry, Pleasure, tempts thy taste.
Till — the huge camel, Life's distress,
The dragon, Death, in the abyss,
The busy nibblers, Day and Night,
Forgotten in thy strange delight —
Of death's dark flood thou dost not think,
But of the berries on its brink.